


Wait For It

by ThereIsNoTragedyInThat



Series: The Space Between the First and Last Breath [19]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Communication, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, Love Confessions, M/M, Pre-Canon, Protective Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Religious Guilt, Self-Hatred, honestly we're just out here trying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:36:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27870049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThereIsNoTragedyInThat/pseuds/ThereIsNoTragedyInThat
Summary: Confessing one's love should be a moment of celebration but not when you have been taught to believe that your love is wrong.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: The Space Between the First and Last Breath [19]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947598
Comments: 11
Kudos: 179





	Wait For It

The space between them was thick with tension, their eyes downcast as they stood apart, the wall they had meticulously taken apart, piece by piece, slowly rebuilding itself. The room was small, the inn decrepit and forgotten on the outskirts of a busy town, a last-minute shelter as the winds picked up and the clouds loomed heavy in the night sky. Nicolò couldn’t help but find it fitting for where they had ended up this night.

His arms were crossed over his bare chest, trying to ward off the chill coming from the window at his back, seeping in from the imperfect seal. Nicolò knew how it must make him seem, the defensive stance as he stood with his feet spread and his head downturned. It was all he had to protect himself from the sensation of his heart shattering.

The scales had been balancing precariously for a long time now and he isn’t sure what tipped them tonight, what had sent them both crashing down. Nicolò does not dare look up, can’t bear the sight of Yusuf looking small and miserable where he is seated on the edge of their shared bed…knows that to do so would strip him of his will, would make him fall to his knees in front of him, if only to return a smile to his face.

The lights from their candles, four in total, send shadows dancing across the dusty floors and he wonders if it was its promise of anonymity that had made them loosen their tongues, had Nicolò speaking the words tucked away in his heart for so long. Truthfully, the reason hardly mattered because now the darkness felt anything but safe. No, it was suffocating in its thickness, conspiring with their silence to strangle him and break him beyond recovery.

Not that he wasn’t already broken.

“I will leave in the morning. We are close to the sea; I’ll find a ship to board and-” the words become ash on his tongue, taste of poison as his lips form the shapes. Nicolò does not want to leave, cannot imagine a life without Yusuf by his side. Still, he knows he must because although distance will do nothing to ease the agony ripping through his heart, time will.

“No.”

Yusuf’s voice, rough with emotion, was enough to draw his gaze, to force Nicolò to look at the man he loved so fervently, who had claimed that same devotion only minutes prior. The shadows make him look older, haggard in a way their bodies would never be and the urge to go to him was enough to steal Nicolò’s breath away.

“Don’t leave. We promised each other-”

“I cannot stay.”

“You can,” Yusuf’s gaze was unwavering, resolute in a way Nicolò had only ever seen in the midst of battle. “You can stay right here, and we can-”

“Yusuf,” Nicolò was tired, felt his exhaustion down to the marrow of his bones. “I cannot love you like this.”

He took a shuddering breath, seemed to crumple in on himself, face buried in his hands, muffling his words, “yet you already do.”

“Yes,” Nicolò murmured and it should be a relief, a weight should have tumbled from their shoulders the moment they had made their confessions…but instead they only found themselves falling further into the uncertainty and fear. “That is why I must leave. This is not right-” he couldn’t help but stumble over the word. “We both know we aren’t meant to love each other like that.”

“Who says?” Yusuf looked up, back straightening, brows furrowed as he spoke. “I love you and I have yet to find a reason for that to be wrong.”

Nicolò winced as his friend tread so very close to blasphemy, found himself turning away, leaving his back to the man, needing to be freed from the intensity of his eyes. The problem was that he could easily see it, could imagine his life by Yusuf’s side, belonging to him in body and soul and the thought…it was terrifying.

He was not a fool nor was he naïve…he was not so blind as to not see what had gone on around him despite his faith’s teachings. At the monastery, he’d curled his lip in disgust on the few occasions he spotted some of the elder men spending too much time with the younger students, the servants. A blind eye was often turned to such behavior and Nicolò waited every day to see if his God would strike those men dead for their actions.

Once he joined in the Holy War, he saw the same among the soldiers, watched them pleasure each other without thought or propriety. Nicolò recalled the lust in their gazes, the leers, the roughness of their actions and it was easy to imagine it was unnatural.

Except…what he felt for Yusuf was not simply lust, he didn’t not just yearn for the other man’s body. No, he craved his company, cherished his smiles, reveled in the sound of his laughter, and found himself feeling lighter every day he was allowed to remain by his side.

It felt good and it felt right.

He could not imagine a love like this being something worthy of being called a sin. Or at least…he couldn’t until he began to count the ways he lost himself in it. The violence he dealt to those who had snuffed out the light in Yusuf’s eyes was enough to terrify him, the things he was willing to do just so Yusuf would look at him and whisper his name, it was a power difficult to imagine, difficult to wield.

The creak of the floorboards made him tense. Nicolò was not certain he was strong enough to leave the man, did not know how to fight in the face of his unwavering conviction. How he could be so sure, while admitting his own doubts in his faith was awe-inspiring.

“Nicolò,” a whisper, a prayer. “You once told me that our meeting was destiny, fate tying us together. I cannot believe that this is true only for you to leave me now. There is no where you might go, that I will not follow…as your friend or your lover.”

A palm, calloused and familiar pressed against he bare skin of his back and Nicolò felt himself deflate, had to swallow the sob that rose up in his chest and suddenly he was being gathered into Yusuf’s arms, as he had so many times before, losing himself in the scent and strength of him.

“I should go,” Nicolò choked out.

“You should stay,” Yusuf countered. “We will figure this out together.”

“I am afraid.”

“Me too.”

Nicolò squeezing his eyes shut against the gentle touch to his hair, Yusuf’s attempt to sooth him. No more words needed to be said, never had to be said between them to simply understand the meaning, for they were practically one now. He thought of a day so far past that it was barely more than a fuzzy memory, dredged up from the depths of his mind.

He recalled the feeling of the sun beating down on his sensitive and aching skin, felt the phantom pains of hunger, remembered with startling clarity the horror and fear he felt when this very man stood above him, hand outstretched, expression twisted into something devastated and grim, as he asked him for peace…for trust…for a chance.

This felt like that, except unlike that first time, he knew exactly what was being promised, what awaited him if he took that offering and committed himself to seeing it through. Yusuf paused, his own voice taking on a pleading tone, “stay Nicolò, for me, just stay.”

He had always been helpless to resist him.

“Yes.”

**Author's Note:**

> weirdly nervous for this one, let me know what you think?


End file.
